What is responsive web design? Responsive web design is an approach to website design aimed at providing an optimal viewing experience across a wide range of devices from desktops, laptops, tablets, mobile phones and even smart TVs, from a single set of code. The website is coded using a mix of flexible or fluid grids, layouts, images and CSS media queries to adapt to a user’s screen size/resolution, platform and orientation. As a user switches from his 27″ desktop to his 10″ tablet and to his 4″ mobile phone, the website should automatically switch to accommodate the new screen resolution. To see this responsive design in action from your laptop or desktop, re-size your browser window smaller and you should see the website respond to the new size by re-sizing elements and re-formatting the layout.

Advantages of Responsive Web Design

Lower web maintenance cost — maintaining separate websites for mobile and desktop would incur more cost than one responsive website that would fit all devices and screen sizes. This is not just development costs but marketing costs, SEO costs etc.

Better reach across social platforms — Contents are more shareable and attractive. Contents compatible with mobile displays are preferred for sharing.

Competitive advantage — A responsive website makes you better positioned competitively as you are on par with the top companies in your niche. Most users have a far better opinion of brands offering a great mobile browsing experience. Users go to a competitor’s website if they find your website not optimized for mobile devices.

More effective for SEO — Google announced in April 2015 that mobile friendliness is now a ranking factor for mobile searches. If your website is not mobile friendly, you are losing potential traffic to your website.

Mobile is the future — more than 50% of all current search traffic is from mobile. 66% of all emails are opened on mobile devices.

Ready for new devices —A responsive website is ready to take on any of the hundreds of existing devices capable of viewing the website. As new devices and screen sizes are developed continually, a responsive website has been proven fool proof against these changes but also upcoming devices like smart watches, wearables like Google Glass, smart TVs etc.

Technical Notes

Our website was completely re-coded recently to incorporate responsive web design. Previously, we had used a script to detect the browser using the user agent (not such a good idea on hindsight) and if a mobile device was detected, served out a simplified version of the website designed to fit on a smaller screen. This created a few problems for us — we were in effect, maintaining two websites and making changes to one means you had to ensure the other version is updated as well; the simplified mobile version didn’t have all of the desktop content and to simplify things, the mobile version had zero capabilities (no file upload, RFQs, subscription form etc); we were also missing out on the ranking “boost” to Google mobile searches.

Our new website was built from the ground up with all new code using the Bootstrap framework which touts the “mobile-first” mantra. We decided against a website re-design as we are happy with the current design and also didn’t want our customers to be confused with any potentially new navigation. We also created a WordPress theme to ensure that the blog section ties in seamlessly to the website.

Let us help you build your website

We can help you build your website. We specialize in building eye catching, user-friendly designs that develop into highly functional professional websites. Our wide range of services include web design, web hosting, domain registration and email services. Call us today at 604.683.6991 to discuss your unique business needs and goals. We bring your vision to life.

Samco Printers is a full service commercial printer providing exceptional offset, digital and large format printing in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada using the latest pre-press, printing and finishing technologies. We also have a fully equipped art department to handle your graphic and web design needs.

Need help? Let us help you get started or put the finishing touches on your printed materials. Our Art Director will be happy to spend some time with you. Give us a call at 604.683.6991 or send an email to techsupport@samcoprinters.com

Don’t need help with design? Talk to us anyway to ensure that the files you’ll be supplying meet our specifications.